General Election 2015

[JoshC.]

So the general election is happening THIS THURSDAY. And we don't even have a thread for it? Disgraceful.

Discuss all things electiony here. Are you voting? Where do your allegiances lie? Or are you apathetic to the whole process and feel much bigger change is needed? Even if you're not old enough to vote, still feel free to contribute your thoughts!

(PS: This thread could get very opinionated and very messy very quickly; let's try and keep handbags away from this yeah? )

[Benin]

They're all awful at life and we'd be better off forming an autonomous collective...

 

 

Sums it up quite nicely I feel...

[MachoMachine]

I'm not old enough to vote but this year it all seems very mix and match with the parties. Seems Tories and Labour have the upper hand but then also the uprise of UKIP over the past year is quite significant. The greens themselves have implemented that a vote for them is a wasted vote at this time, and Lib Dems just seem to be a bit confused with their policies (silly cleggy)

On another note, Russell Brand preaching how everyone shouldn't vote for ages now he's suddenly saying everyone should vote for labour? You ok? Need a sit down?

Edit: if you're registered to vote but you're still unsure on who to vote for, this online quiz type website really helps and gives a breakdown of the different sections! https://verto.vote/#/You can also see how popular each party is in your area

[Ian-S]

Brand is an hypocritical attention seeking whore that changes his mind more often that I have hot dinners, why anybody gives him any time is beyond me, 5% of what he says is interesting, the rest is horse ****.

 

Farage is a terrible public speaker and so that is a good thing overall, not that "Dave" or "Ed" are any better for us in the long term.

 

If you are serious about voting, don't believe a word that comes out of any politicians mouth, go do the research yourself.  Some midnight research for you if you want: research what the GPD deficit was when Labour came to power in 1997, then to 2008, obviously this sky-rocketed thereafter thanks to the gambling bankers, but do the same for when "Dave" came to power and gave Gideon the calculator, then lookup what the deficit is now in terms of GDP.

 

Frankly, as Josh has said, a bigger change is needed, as my old Grandad used to say (he served in both wars btw) - it doesn't matter who you vote for, the Government always get in (think about that for a few minutes).  We have no Government atm.....

 

Discuss...

 

If you can't be bothered to vote, then don't complain when things get worse, get to the polling station and if you genuinely don't want to vote for any party, you do have that option, put a line through your ballot paper and write NONE OF THE ABOVE across it, that is then counted as a "spoilt ballot paper" and listed alongside all the other votes, if all the people that couldn't be bothered to vote "cos they're all crooks" did this, it would send a massive message to TPTB.

[pognoi]

If I could vote I'd vote Lid Dems or Green. Or Monster raving loonies because I really want a unicorn.

[Project LC]

I'm from Brighton and the greens are the worst party I have ever seen. They know nothing of science or logic. They have killed the local economy and not one policy has been eco-friendly.

[Benin]

The Greens are REALLY frustrating... Some of their policies are so good, but then there's some really dumb ones...

 

Also, they think they can magic some money out of nowhere for those things... Wouldn't recommend them tbh, nor any of them really... I don't even know who I'll vote for tbh...

[Ian-S]

I'm from Brighton and the greens are the worst party I have ever seen. They know nothing of science or logic. They have killed the local economy and not one policy has been eco-friendly.

 

You are the only person I know who has that view, a few people I know who live in Brighton think the Greens are the best thing since sliced bread (yes they are stupid).

 

Unicorns sounds fun, I'm not sure if we have a MRLP candidate round here though.

 

Here's my prediction:  Nobody will win a majority, Dave will form a minority government and continue screwing us all over, and because Labour picked the wrong brother, they'll be so interested in kicking each other in the teeth that they'll miss every opportunity to win a no confidence vote and kick Dave out of office for the next 5 years, and if by some miracle they do manage to form a Government, they'll continue Gideon's plan to sleepwalk us into bankruptcy.

 

Under the legislation, Dave can form a minority Government if nobody else get's a majority, so even if Labour win the most votes, unless it's a majority they cannot form a Government until Dave relinquishes his claim (of which I have more chance of winning a Merlin VIP Pass in a lucky dip than that happening).

[pognoi]

You say that but actually Gordon Brown and Blair were the ones who waltzed us into debt. Conservatives have done a very good job at getting us out of it. I don't agree with alot of what the tories say and do but the one thing they ARE good at is cleaning up after labours mad cash spending run.

You say that cameron has been spending lots, but who was it the other week who said that during the recession, labour 'should have borrowed more'...?

[Ian-S]

Yes they did waltz us into it, but only to save us from a worse fate, all the banks were bankrupt, there would have been a run, and society would have collapsed as a result, this isn't an overstatement, Dave has done the same thing since by continuing to bail out the banks.

As a percentage of GDP, we are worse off now than when Dave took over, I'm not saying either is better, or worse, but had conservatives been in power in 2008, they'd have done the same thing, it's easy to forget that the problem was caused by irresponsible lending by banks, not out of control public spending.

[AJ]

Your forgetting though the reason why the percentage of GDP is a lot higher under this government is because they are still reducing the deficit. After Labour left us with such a high deficit after they left you can't just then wipe off just under £200 billion spending the following year whilst a recession is going on and in coalition with the Lib Dems who did not want to cut as drastically. 

 

Yes the borrowing has continued but the amount of borrowing each year has reduced & the only 4 parties willing to balance the books in the next government are Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems & UKIP. The other parties saying we need to keep on borrowing I think are highly irresponsible, expecting the next generation to pay for it. With them in tow that GDP figure your talking about will by all means increase! 

[Project LC]

Labour spent £4 for every £1 they received. We were in a boom when you have a surplus. Instead they increased spending. A recession was always going to come and instead of preparing for it, Labour made it worse. Conservatives would have had the deficit as a surplus but instead we had a coalition so the lib dems stopped the extreme cuts.

Labour has completely flawed arguments. Only 1 in 50 jobs are zero hour contracts. Wages are rising in real terms. People are better off due to tax cuts. The 50p tax wasn't even in use during the Labour government. Not one argument that Ed has put across has been valid and yet 33% of the population seem to believe in what he is saying. If Labour gets in power (they won't) we will all be much worse off.

[mah boi]

Now that this subject is being discussed, here is a poll which has been spreading around social media sites. It shows a interesting result against all that the MSM has been blabbering about (https://gritdigital.co.uk/infographics/uk-general-election/#2015-opinion-poll). In regards to which party I will be voting for, that will have to be UKIP.  

 

P.S. I am not a racist and I am from a family who have come from abroad. 

[Project LC]

Ukip is a perfectly acceptable vote. The whole culture of looking down on people who voted right wing needs to end. They have some very good policies and are the only party with a real way of controlling immigration.

[MachoMachine]

Nigel Farage would probably blame immigrants if his car broke down/his dog died/the supermarket ran out of organic milk

[Matt 236]

I've decided I'm going to vote for the Matt Creek Party this year.

Their manifesto says they plan to improve the economic situation by building more theme parks and experiences and they will improve transport structure by linking Glasgow and London by the worlds fastest roller coaster.

They will help the housing crisis by building 100 themed hotels with 180 rooms, 70 which will be in London.

One of their other policies is to scrap planning permission to replace it with a landscape alteration act which can only be revolver if it effects nature or pollution.

Matt creek party it is for me.

[Ian-S]

Your forgetting though the reason why the percentage of GDP is a lot higher under this government is because they are still reducing the deficit. After Labour left us with such a high deficit after they left you can't just then wipe off just under £200 billion spending the following year whilst a recession is going on.

Osborne said he would wipe out the deficit by 2015 when he came to office, thankfully the Lib Dems stopped him, although he blames the EU for it.

 

Labour spent £4 for every £1 they received. We were in a boom when you have a surplus. Instead they increased spending.

Labour did increase spending (on public services like the NHS and Schools) but the £4 for £1 figure also takes into account the £500 billion they used to bail out the banks, as I said before, had the Conservatives been in power at the time, they would have had to bail out the banks too.

Having said that, Labour did do some seriously dumb stuff during their tenure.

 

A recession was always going to come and instead of preparing for it, Labour made it worse.

Labour didn't cause the recession or make it worse, the banks did that all by themselves.

Also don't forget that in the mid-2000's when Labour wanted to loosen up the Banking Regulations, the Conservatives wanted much looser regs, essentially making the Banking Industry be self policing. Imagine how bad the recession would have been had the Conservatives got their way...

 

Conservatives would have had the deficit as a surplus but instead we had a coalition so the lib dems stopped the extreme cuts.

Labour has completely flawed arguments. Only 1 in 50 jobs are zero hour contracts.

That figure from Dave is based on 14 month old data, a lot has changed since 2013, another Government Dept (can't remember the name of it) estimates it to be more like 1 in every 19.

 

Wages are rising in real terms.

No they're not, this is a myth.

Wages only rise (in real terms) if the % level they increase is greater than inflation.

From Jan 2009 to Dec 2014 inflation increased at a higher rate than wages, in "real terms" most people had wage reductions during this period:

Inflation:

2014 1.5%

2013 2.5%

2012 2.8%

2011 4.5%

2010 3.3%

2009 2.2%

Average: 2.8%

The average wage rise over the same period is 1.4% according to the ONS. This means that in "real terms" we've all suffered at least a 1.4% pay cut since 2009. Wages only increased more than inflation in March and April of this year and given that was mostly thanks to Sanctions against Russia reducing the cost of Oil, there's no guarantee it will continue.

 

People are better off due to tax cuts.

Only if they earn enough to take advantage of the cut.

Increasing the tax threshold from £10k to £12k, doesn't make anybody earning less than £10k any better off.

 

The 50p tax wasn't even in use during the Labour government. Not one argument that Ed has put across has been valid and yet 33% of the population seem to believe in what he is saying. If Labour gets in power (they won't) we will all be much worse off.

Agreed, but we won't be any better off under the Conservatives either.

Matt Creek Party, now that's a manifesto....

[Project LC]

How can you say that the labour party did not make the outcome of the recession worse. They were spending crazy amounts and as a result we are now all suffering because of it. Also when it comes to statistics don't use government ones which are heavily influenced by the person doing them. Independent bodies is where I get my figures from unlike labours figures. You can believe what statistics you like but what on earth are the chances in jobs between 2010-13 being 1 in 50 on zero hours to suddenly sky rocket to 1 in 19. Bottom line is 2 million more jobs (more jobs than the rest of the EU combined), tax cuts for 30 million people, the deficit halved, NHS spending up 11.6%, education spending up 6%, 2.2 million apprenticeships created, the fastest growing economy in the western world. 

The conservatives in the last 4 years have created 1089 jobs a day, whereas labour in their last 4 years lost 25 jobs a day. Under labours system people on benefits were able to earn more than teachers and a load of other public sector jobs. They opened the flood gates to immigration and what's worse they haven't even acknowledge what they did was wrong. Labour want to basically destroy small business by raising business tax. So they will close because they cant keep up with the loss of profit and the other loss of profit by pressure to raise wages when its not possible to do so. 

[AstroDan]

The above is a pack of inaccurate rubbish and reads like a Tory press release.

Do you actually read anything other than the Daily Mail?

The Conservative Party are a risk to the public sector and the recession was not caused by Labour. They failed to regulate the banks but were not the reason we went under.

[Ian-S]

The inflation/wage rises figures might be government ones, but the independent ones say the same too, those are not the kind of figures you can lie about, the figures speak for themselves tbh.

We don't know what the conservatives would have done when the banks crashed, that's my point, they could have done the same, or the situation could have been even worse had they got their way in the previous years and let them off the lead, or it could have been better handled. Conservatives just continued to increase spending as Labour did, they didn't start the spending increases.

Zero hour contracts have skyrocketed in the last few years, I'm working off memory here but it's been something like 20-30% increase a year, my neighbour has just been sacked and re-employed on a zero hour contract, something made possible by the conservatives changing the employment laws when they came to power, under the previous laws, her employer wouldn't have been able to do this.

We may get to see how the conservatives react to another banking crash as many economists are predicting one soon because lending in other countries, is back at pre-crash levels, we may have tightened up our lending criteria here but many countries haven't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Labour will do a better job, by christ I wouldn't trust the two Ed's to organise a pissup in a brewery, but on the flip side I think the age old favourite conservative party line of blame everything on labour is as deep routed in bull**** as my local dump, labour did a lot wrong, but they did not create the financial crash and it's unfair to blame all our problems on labour when they were stuck between a rock and a hard place over what to do, something I still say the conservatives would have done no differently.

[Project LC]

When did I say the recession was caused by labour? Also I would love you to point out the inaccurate rubbish. The ONS wouldn't argue with any of my statistics, neither would the IFS. So please point out where I am misleading. 

I would also like to point out that inflation is currently at 0% which means wages are rising. 

[Ian-S]

I didn't say you were taking inaccurate rubbish.

You said are you seriously saying labour didn't make the recession worse, I merely pointed out they didn't cause it.

I also said wages had outstripped inflation in the last two months too, but wasn't sure if it would continue.

Are we both talking the same language? LOL

[Project LC]

Inaccurate rubbish was aimed at the post before you. We happened to post at the same time, so I went back and edited my post to add the last sentence. 

[Ian-S]

Oh fudge, I didn't even see that post, my tablet jumped straight to page 2 after I posted that lol.

[Project LC]

Oh fudge, I didn't even see that post, my tablet jumped straight to page 2 after I posted that lol.

The number of times my phone has done that and I'm just left there reading it, not being able to make any sense of it.